Posted
by
kdawson
on Wednesday November 29, 2006 @08:57AM
from the yep-they're-listening dept.

orgelspieler writes, "According to the New York Times, Justice Department Inspector General Glenn Fine has opened a review of his department's role in the domestic spying program. Democrats (and some Republicans) have been requesting an all-out investigation into the legality of the so-called 'Terrorist Surveillance Program' since it was made public. But this new inquiry stops short of evaluating the constitutional legitimacy of the program." From the article: "The review, Mr. Fine said in his letter, will examine the controls in place at the Justice Department for the eavesdropping, the way information developed from it was used, and the department's 'compliance with legal requirements governing the program'... Several Democrats suggested that the timing of his review might be tied to their takeover of Congress in this month's midterm elections as a way to preempt expected Democratic investigations of the N.S.A. program."

Regardless if they're doing this to prevent a congressional hearing, I think all of Bush's cabinet are in up to their necks with this thing. They've promoted it, publicly praised it & even publicly defended it--I'm excited to see it publicly scrutinized & watch revisionist history write them all off as enemies of the constitution. I mean, my grandfather tells me about the horrible things the president authorized against Japanese-Americans during World War II & my father tells me the horrible things that Nixon did. I'm sure there will a time when I'm a haggled old coot that keeps telling my kids how lucky they are not to have a president that's pushing for government archival of their phone & internet records--and that's the only part I knew about which mean it must be twice as worse! So I put an onion in my pocket which was the style at the time...

Revisionist history, eh? This domestic spying is without warrant. Thus, it very clearly violates that amendment of the Constitution known as the Fourth. It also is against the very specific set of statutes known as the FISA statutes. FISA is short for Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. If an executive branch office wants to spy on the American people because they think they may gain foreign intelligence (i.e., the infamous bad guys were calling into the United States so we had to spy on all of you e

Are you implying that Bush's spy plan was constitutional? I don't see where 'revisionist history' comes into play here...Bush and Co. seem to prefer 'revisionist present' where they lie through their teeth until the evidence of their evilness can no longer be denied.

I think that Congress is looking for water in a dry hole. Let us consider that the president's people have made the right actions over the last 6 years. Because, we all know, the president could not sell umbrellas, or wind shield wipers in a rain storm. If the president was really interested in hosing the expansion of Islam, he would move America in the direction of the Hydrogen Dollar, he has not. I just find it hard to accept that the pipe line from Iraq through Jordan through Israel/Lebanon is to be

"I mean, my grandfather tells me about the horrible things the president authorized against Japanese-Americans during World War II"

And is Franklin Roosevelt reviled today because of it? No, we put him on the dime.

The only president I can think of that approached this level of contemporary controversy in office over executive powers and the like is Lincoln, and we put him on money too. I believe I've said it before, but as much as we dislike Bush, until 2009 January 20, he's just an assasin's bullet away f

I'd say there's a chance they're doing this in order to say "oh wow, this is way overboard and shouldn't be done any more" and kill the program, just in time for Democrats to not get their hands on it.

You know, it's funny. I have a lot of friends and family who believe Bush can do no wrong (since we are at war and he is protecting us all) with all of these executive power grabs, but their eyes glass over and faces go black when I ask if they would be comfortable with Kerry or Hillery Clinton bringing those same surveillance and detention powers to bear against gun owners, anti-abortion activists, other conservative groups, etc. Did everyone just forget that Bush (who they oddly trust implicitly) will not be in power forever.

Did everyone just forget that Bush (who they oddly trust implicitly) will not be in power forever.

And that this 'war' will continue forever, too.

Conservativism==Whatever the Republicans in power are doing, exactly until the Americans get so annoyed at them they vote them out or they have obvciously failed, at which point the whole thing becomes fake conservativism..real conservativism, you see, has never been tried, or never been tried correctly.

Just wait. They're already turning on Bush, talking about how he's not really conservative. They are, of course, correct, but everyone else started pointing that out six fucking years ago. They don't get to disown him after years and years of sucking up.

This is true, and I was really annoyed at the TV talking heads who just woke up after the election and realized that what the republicans have been doing is not "fiscally conservative" and maybe that is what turned off much of their base. Really? hemorrhagin

This is true, of course. It comes about because there are a lot of people in America who like to call themselves "conservative," but have no concept of what that means and really would be best described as "authoritarian." The basic tenets of authoritarianism are the subjugation of the individual to the group's ideals, something that you can see any time a so-called 'conservative' starts talking about how those pesky "rights" need to be "re-examined" because of "national security." (Sound familiar [slashdot.org]?) The aut

The problem is, when a large group of people essentially hijack a term and take it as their own, there's not a lot you can do about it. I used to call myself a conservative, until I realized that I didn't agree with any of the new Evangelical would-be "conservatives." Like a lot of other people I know, I now tend to describe myself more in terms of libertarianism.

The actual problem is that there is no actual conservative philosophy. At all.

To make your long post short, the bottom line is that being conservative does not necesarily mean you are a Republican, and just because you are a Republican, does not mean that you are a conservative.It's also fairly well known that the Republican party TODAY bears little resemblance to the party 20 years ago. I can say the same thing about the democratic party. Both parties have been highjacked by fringe groups that don't represent the majority of Americans and have been subverted by lobbyists weilding bi

While I generally agree with you on most points, I'll have to take exception to this one. The fact that people misuse a term to cloak their misdeeds does not mean that the term never had a cogent meaning, or that it is devoid of substance.

Would you say that "the word 'new' doesn't mean anything," for example, just because "New!" has been plastered all over thousands of products that weren't new at all? Or would you just say that the people who misused the word were lying?

That's the most elegant one-sentence summary of true conservatism that I've heard in a long time. You sure you don't want to run for office?I think the GP's biggest mistake is in thinking that being a "conservative" means pining for the past; something that happened long ago, or perhaps never at all. That's not, in my opinion, true at all. To be a conservative is to see the good in the situation as it is currently, and to use caution in changing it, lest the situation become worse due to poorly-thought-out

Although I did find the GP's explanation of the philosophical difference between progressives and liberals interesting (I had always assumed that a "progressive" was just a pretentious college-student word for "liberal").

Agreed. Interestingly, there is a sort of overlap between the real-conservative world view and that of the true progressive (I'm thinking Lord Macaulay style here): both are concerned with improving the world by making only well reasoned, justified changes and eschewing both change for

I can't believe I voted for Bush the first time. Had I know he would willing to ignore our constitution and way of life in the name of safety, I would have never considered him.

You and me both, but really it was hard to forsee.

I mean, we just went through the Clinton years where Gore was spearheading the clipper initiative which would have effectively make privacy (and all non clipper crypto) illegal and given the government the ability to spy on everything, while having John Ashcroft emerge as the champion of privacy by leading the opposition to the clipper initiative. I really didn't expect the total and complete 180 on the issue.

Now I know better, both parties are want total access to our lives and supreme executive power (all in the name of keeping us safe). They just pretend to be outraged when the other party is in office and expanding those powers. Believe me, if the democrats take the whitehouse next election they will completely forget about their opposition to any spying and the republicians will suddenly oppose it.

What I get a kick out of is the fact that the reason for snooping morphs and changes. In the 90's it was to reign in the drug dealers who were using crypto to shove cocaine up our children's noses. Now it's terrorists. In 6 years it will be the andorian attack fleet.

Don't you love the ability to choose between the two options given to you?

One more reason why people should strongly push for approval voting [wikipedia.org]. It allows one to vote for a 3rd party or independent candidate without "wasting" their vote, and isn't more difficult for anyone to understand than our current system.

And while they may have proposed stupid things in the past, at least they didn't, you know, stupidly invade Iraq.

No, they just signed off on it and pretty much everything else that followed. I'll grant you the Dems seem to be acting like they have a clue lately, but it's mostly too little too late, the damage is done.

But this new inquiry stops short of evaluating the constitutional legitimacy of the program

Unless, when they say "Justice Department" they actually mean "Judges," then of course it "stops short" of determining the constitutionality of a program. That's what judges do. They don't always do it well, but that's what they do.

Absolutely correct. The Justice Department will make a finding about the operations as they relate to current law. (The really interesting bet is whether they will resort to referencing Presidential War Powers to aid the lipsticking of this pig.)

Regarding constitutionality, judges don't investigate that. They ajudicate a dispute between two parties, one of whom is arguing that some activity or law is harming them and is in conflict with another law or the Constitution. The other argues that there was no ha

Does anyone else find it interesting how slowly the slashdot crowd is responding to this topic? I figure it's one of three things, but I can't guess which:

- We're too tired of talking about this issue- We realize that we all agree it's evil, and that no one is listening to slashdot- We're somewhat afraid that this topic will actually be read carefully by the Justice Department

This is not hard to figure out. I am not being overly dramatic here, and I ask you to look at the sources I am citing and consider what I am saying seriously.

These people basically have a centralized, facist mindset. They don't really believe in freedom; they think that the masses people need to be managed and controlled. They believe that there should be a class of ruling elites who run the show, and then the common folk, who have no real power or influence. They view society as a corporation, with a few owners, some managers, and a bunch of peon workers who just take orders. They want to be the CEO sitting in the control chair, watching a real-time dashboard of everything that everyone is doing.

All of this tracking and surveillance they are doing has nothing to do with watching Al Qaida and terrorists. What they want to do is what all totalitarian governments -- be they communist or fascist -- want to do: track everybody. That way you can have control over everybody. Knowledge is power. Check out "IBM and the Holocaust". The Nazis were using then state-of-the-art information processing technology to keep track of Jews, opposition groups, everybody. Everybody had a number, everybody had a file. The same thing happened in communist Russia and in Iraq under Hussein. It's the calling card of totalitarianism.

The smoking gun is the Total Information Awareness [wikipedia.org] program which was introduced shortly after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. It is a conglomerate database of all electronic information that exists about everybody in the US -- all your bank, medical, school, work records -- even the purchases you make with your shopping club card. Due to public outcry, the program was ostensibly canceled, but in actuality all of the seperate features were just broken up into smaller programs. Check out the wikipedia article linked above.

9/11 was the excuse for all of these fascistic plans to come out of the woodwork and be given a go. Yes, we do need to be protected from Al Qaida and other terrorists, but not at the expense of the constitution.

Things are not bad yet, but they could go bad. Pieces are being moved into place that would give a dictator all of the tools that he would need to exercise incredible power. We are already seeing the media bullied, silenced, and propagandized. I guess the next sign of things getting worse would probably be disappearances and prominent people flee^H^H^H^Hleaving the country.

Experts are saying there is no vast al queda presence in the United States

So the main solution to our Al-Qaeda problem is to basically strengthen our borders so that it's more difficult for Al Qaeda operatives to enter. That actually can be done without negative impact on domestic freedoms.

Mexican border isn't 3k miles long, genius:) But I don't see how monitoring the border strip with electronic devices would be a huge problem - no need to build a physical fence. Just track illegal crossers and catch them later. That along with improved tech to see what's coming in to the US in vehicles.

By the way, most of the Al Qaeda hijackers came into the US *legally*, so increased restrictions on legal immigration from certa

Our Coast Guard does a pretty decent job fishing them out of the drink. They'd do a better job if there were more of them. Unfortunately, some of them are now stationed in the Middle East (yes, Coast Guardsmen are being sent to Iraq to guard US naval assets).

One end of those calls is overseas. Some are mobile phones. Some will end in countries that don't cooperate with the US. In some cases they just might want to watch to see who they keep talking to. They might be p

I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong (and will probably try even if I'm right and they're wrong) but isn't the spying program we're talking about calls that original foreignly and only terminate domestically? Based on on the criteria that the spying program is being called "domestic" all cars sold in the US would be domestic regardless of location of manufacture and assembly unless you go to a dealership in a foreign country and purchase the car there and import it, it is no longer foreign. All w

Diamon,You are correct in that the spying program is not "Domestic". This is just a term thrown around by politicos that want to frame the debate as one where one side is "Protecting the freedoms of Americans" and the other side is "Trying to take away our freedoms". The truth of the matter is that this is a program used to keep tabs on terrorist suspects abroad and their contacts in the United States. It's important and necessary as one of the weaknesses of any terrorist organization is thier communica

"...tabs on terrorist suspects abroad and their contacts in the United States. "So, how do you classify a person as a terrorist SUSPECT?? Isn;t it the same definition as a "Person of Interest".Michael Moore may be a boor and uncouth, but he atleast tries to bring the truth into blinding light.Are you saying Michael Woodward who wrote Plan of Attack and the rest of "Bush at War:" books as criminal?Since when is it illgal in US to expose the reckless witless war mongering of presidents? Since when is it crim

You may be unaware of this, but no communications outside the US borders are covered by the US rights to privacy. If you make a call outside the US, or into the US, it can be monitored.See here:http://www.eff.org/patriot/sunset/204.php [eff.org]

Now if both sides of the communication are US citizens, they need FASA approval. If one end is NOT a US citizen, then listening in is fair game.

Now, there are other rights, like not being able to use that information for anything other than National Security. You could, for ex

If by "terror suspect" you mean "person who lives outside the United States," then I can see how you make a lick of sense.Otherwise, given that the Justice Department has steadfastly refused to give any details on who is being monitored (to avoid "aiding the terr'ists") you don't know who is being monitored, or for what reasons. You have no way of gauging their decisions on who should and shouldn't be monitored. You have no way of gauging whether anyone's civil rights are being violated. You have no way

The truth of the matter is that this is a program used to keep tabs on terrorist suspects abroad and their contacts in the United States. It's important and necessary as one of the weaknesses of any terrorist organization is thier communication link.

If that's the truth of the matter then prove it.

Oh right, you can't can you? You, in fact, have no sane reason whatsoever to believe that ridiculous nonsense, do you?

In fact, all you have done is repeat a proven lie by Bush, who has lied about damn near everythi

but isn't the spying program we're talking about calls that original foreignly and only terminate domestically?

No. The program involves surveillance of purely domestic activity as well -- the program is 'limited' to people who are suspected of having contact with foreigners with links to al Qaeda. Once the connection with a foreign person of interest is established, the administration feels that the domestic person is then an OK target for surveillance. The program isn't/wasn't limited to wiretaps -- it

No, it also includes domestic calls that go out internationally. Bascially if you have any friends or relatives overseas, you would be subject to monitoring. Because, you know, Al Queda has cells everywhere. Saudi Arabia. Germany. Canada.

Seriously, when they start frog marching DOJ officials for high crimes and misdemenors, I'll believe that congress is sincere. Until that point I'll be treating this as a dog and pony show to appease the rabble.

the first judge allow into evidence recordings collected without a warrant. This warrantless wiretapping hasn't been brought up before the courts where I suspect all evidence collected in that manner will be thrown out. No American will be convicted on it. Any worry I do have is supression of dissenting voice using illegal wiretaps.

I have one additional worry. Since Bush has said that terrorist suspects go to Guantanamo (or other, similar prisons) and do not have to be given a criminal trial according to U.S. law, then how many people arrested due to evidence collected by the warrantless wiretapping will ever see a court?

Bush violated the FISA [wikipedia.org]. The FISA is an exception to basic Constitutional guarantees of protection from government privacy invasion and arbitrary searches, within an extended compromise with rare, extreme cases where the government claims extraordinary necessity for speed and secrecy that the normal due process cannot accommodate.

Bush violated the FISA exception that requires him to get a warrant. Therefore he violated the Constitution. Many times, over many years. As a matter of policy, with a large staff behind him. Bush is a criminal of the highest order. That means impeachment. You or I would go to Federal prison for years and be bankrupted [wikipedia.org]. Bush will clear brush at his ranch.

The NSA is part of the NSA. The military does not go to civilian courts for monitoring communication on battlefields. Once the NSA discovered that a known enemy (the wiretap target) has contacted someone within the US, they pass this information to the FBI. The FBI at this point needs to go to the FISA court to make the person within the US a target of a wiretap. Note that it has be reported that FISA judges will not grant a warrant purely on information from the NSA. The FBI must find some other infor

I assume that your first sentence was meant to read, "The NSA is part of the DoD." That's not actually correct. The NSA's charter consists of a one page executive order that was signed by Harry Truman. So far as I know, that charter has never been made public.The NSA does consume a great deal of data that comes from the DoD, but the DoD has little influence on how that data is interpreted, or how any resultant information is republished.

That's funny, the Congress disagreed totally with you when it wrote the FISA, after the last uncontrolled tyrant, Nixon, spied on us with the CIA and NSA. And the Federal judge disagreed with you, too. Bush and his lawyer Gonzales seem to agree with you, though. There's a legal authority to respect."It has been reported"? What is this, Fox News? The FISA court has granted practically every warrant, including post-facto warrants, that Bush has asked for.

People are used to treating politicians like nobility, after millennia of class traditions. Celebrity culture is the ultimate expression. And power is always used to avoid accountability for risk.We should hold our politicians to a higher standard than private citizens, as the public trust makes pefect audits impossible, and our exposure to their risks is greater than in private.

Fortunately, the US government is based on competition among powers and accountability. The party system, especially the Republica

This war on terrorism is our new Cold War. It will last a generation or two.

Because we are at war it is necessary to engage in certain behaviors--renditions, torture,
domestic spying, secret prisons, etc.

We cannot tell you what we are doing because it would compromise national security during a
time of war.

The courts cannot review what we are doing because it will compromise national security during
a time of war.

Any newspaper reporter or news outlet that reports a leak of these programs can be put under
oath and forced to reveal sources, under threat of going to jail for contempt.

Only select members of Congress can know what we are doing. But they cannot tell anyone because it will compromise national security.

When Congress passes laws, the president has the right to ignore these law if he believes they
infringe upon his war powers or his role as Commander in Chief.

The courts cannot review the president's decision in rule no. 7 because it would compromise
national security.

These rules have the very convenient effect of disabling ALL of the checks and balances on the executive branch of the government. Frankly, unless many thousands of Americans are dying, violence is erupting everywhere, and this country is teetering on the brink of economic/political oblivion, I see no reason to install an emergency autocratic government. Even if we were at that point, I would still want some above-board cost/benefit arguments explained to me as to how I'm going to be safer in reality (as to just "feeling" safer) by giving up some of my civil liberties and watching the world learn to hate us.

Much like the rest of his political strategy (Iraq war, etc), Bush puts forward nothing but a flim-flam job of justifying inflated neo-con theories of the use of discretionary executive force. How nice it would be to make all the trains run exactly on time, if we could just arrest anyone who used to make them run late? Fascism has a certain appeal when you don't realize that it actually is fascism.

We need checks and balances in the country.. anybody who doesn't believe that should closely read the Federalist Papers. Those guys were certified geniuses in the realistic exercise of power. They had the benefit of 1,000 years of European wars and history to examine human nature at its Machiavellian worst. They knew EXACTLY what they were doing when they set up checks on presidential power, they envisioned internal and external threats to the country every bit as clear and present as they are today.

And how do you know this? Because they told you so? There are probably numerous terror cells living here in the US that the G-men are interested in, and monitoring internal US phone traffic is probably a good way to get a lead or two. If the G-men aren't doing it, the declaration that it is OK is one step away, since the international program sets a precedent. And soon after that, the G-men might say well, these criminals types are a "threat" so we need to include them too, and so on and so on.

Yes, actually. If we all took your stance then we could assume the government is kidnapping babies out of hospital maternity wards and turning them into mutant super fighters. How do you know they're not? Because they told you so? You naive fool!

After all, you have no proof one way or the other. So yes, we go by what has been released to the public so far and we don't need to make up more conspiracy theories.

"On May 22, 2006, it was reported by Seymour Hersh and Wired News that under this authority, the NSA had installed monitoring and interception supercomputers within the routing hubs of almost all major US telecoms companies capable of intercepting and monitoring a large proportion of all domestic and international telephone and Internet connections, and had used this to perform mass eavesdropping and order police investigations of tens of thousands of ordinary Americans without judicial warrants." [Emphasis mine]

Here [newyorker.com] is the link to the Hersh article, and here [wired.com] is the link to the Wired article.

If we all took your stance then we could assume the government is kidnapping babies out of hospital maternity wards and turning them into mutant super fighters. How do you know they're not? Because they told you so? You naive fool!

This was modded insightful?!!

Can you please let me know when, throughout all of human history, it was a good idea to blindly trust the government?

Lord knows the government has NEVER lied before, right? What the fuck are you smoking and can I get about 3 pounds of it delive

My god, reading comprehension has taken a nose dive on Slashdot. I didn't say to trust the government, I said we can only go on what information is given to us. It wasn't the government that told us about the wiretapping program, was it? So if the NYT comes up with evidence to prove the existence of another program, then fine. Until you have some evidence, though, it's just a conspiracy theory and has nothing to do with this topic.

I didn't say to trust the government, I said we can only go on what information is given to us.

Uh... now who's having comprehension problems? What's the difference between trusting the government and just accepting the information that is "given to us"? Either way it's passive. What about DEMANDING answers?! I guess you don't believe in holding the government accountable. I know that there are true Americans out there who, unlike you, actually take this shit seriously. We can't let the government monitor

Again, I ask, where am I SUPPORTING any of what the government is doing?The post I was responding to says "There are probably numerous terror cells living here in the US... these criminals types are a "threat" so we need to include them too, and so on and so on."

In other words, he doesn't know, and he's making stuff up. There are certainly cells here, and they are hopefully being monitored - but until you get some evidence that it's without warrants, then it's merely a conspiracy theory. Now, if someone

" There are certainly cells here, and they are hopefully being monitored - but until you get some evidence that it's without warrants, then it's merely a conspiracy theory. Now, if someone presents some actual evidence, then it's a different story, and no, I wouldn't rely on the government for that - it was the New York Times that spilled the beans on the wiretapping"

You have a classic case of nerdism. You're going for form over reality. You are taking this opportunity to give patronizing lessons in logic

You have a classic case of nerdism. You're going for form over reality.

Well, you may be right. I am proudly a nerd, but while I think I am somewhere in the middle politically (I do NOT like or support the Bush administration), I see a hypocrisy about how the administration is treated compared to past administrations and other politicians. If you think GW Bush is the greatest threat to liberty our country has faced then you may have forgotten history.

After all, you have no proof one way or the other. So yes, we go by what has been released to the public so far and we don't need to make up more conspiracy theories.

FISA doesn't allow the government to spy on communication between Americans and terrorists without a warrant, you lying sack of shit:

Notwithstanding any other law, the President, through the Attorney General, may authorize electronic surveillance without a court order under this subchapter to acquire foreign intelligence information for per

Wow, man, what an asshole to call me a lying sack of shit because you don't agree with me... what, exactly, was I lying about? That we don't need to make up conspiracy theories? That's what you quoted, after all. Holy shit, anonymity on the internet strikes again. Well, I can lower myself to your level, you fucking coward asshole cowering behind an anonymous username.

"...we go by what has been released to the public..."That doesn't mean what the government has released - after all, it was the NYT that brought this whole thing to light. He was making stuff up.

And the matter IS being investigated and I'm sure we'll all find out what is uncovered; there's no point in making unsubtantiated claims. The problem I have with your analogy is that someone IS investigating the murder and the OP is saying "he might have killed that guy down the street, too! And that unsolved mur

Yes, actually. If we all took your stance then we could assume the government is kidnapping babies out of hospital maternity wards and turning them into mutant super fighters. How do you know they're not? Because they told you so? You naive fool!

If I assume that the government is doing that and I'm wrong, everything is fine. But if I assume that the government isn't doing that and I'm wrong, we're all fucked. So what's the bottom line? When it comes to government, a little paranoia is healthy!

But I completely agree... but this guy I was responding to was merely making stuff up. Saying "I have a theory that the government is doing [something], and I'm going to prove it!" is a far cry from saying "Well, the government is doing this, so you are blind because they might be doing something else, too!"

My understanding is that the true nature and extent of this program is still top secret. All that has been released to the public is a couple of leaks and a bunch of denials/justifications from the government. Given the fact that before the leaks Bush was claiming that they were getting warrants for all their tapping, what is the rational basis for believing what they say now? If this program is still top secret, doesn't the Administration actually have a duty to lie about or obfuscate the true nature and extent of the program?

The program as you and the Administration describe it could easily fit within the existing FISA law. Which raises the question, why risk the political and legal fall-out of avoiding the FISA court if you don't have to? Why is the lame duck Congress trying to push through new legislation to authorize the program if the program could actually fit within the existing legal framework?

What the headline calls domestic spying is actually the tapping of phone calls to and from people inside the United States to and from someone outside the United States who is a known terrorist or member of Al Queda.

Of course, and as we well know the government is totally infallible and would never falsely accuse anyone of being a terrorist or anything else. Even when they know they could get away with it because there is absolutely no independent oversight (gotta keep those activist judges out of the loop, they just complicate matters). We have a strict system of checks and balances in this country, and of course habeas corpus and presumption of innocence applies to us all....unless you are a known terrorists. "Known to who" you ask? "What makes one a known terrorist" you ask? Those are dangerous, un-American questions, boy. You best let the President do his work and keep us all safe and not worry about insignificant details like that.

It is not, as some believe, the government wiretapping phone calls internal to the United States.

Nope, absolutely not. I mean, before someone leaked it we did not think they were wiretapping any calls without properly obtaining warrants, but since it was leaked we know that they are wiretapping international calls without warrants. We still think they are not tapping internal calls this way, and what are the chances we would be wrong again?

And when it comes to the Internet, I'm sure those classified NSA server closets that AT&T has are where they keep the doughnuts.

What the headline calls domestic spying is actually the tapping of phone calls to and from people inside the United States to and from someone outside the United States who is a known terrorist or member of Al Queda. It is not, as some believe, the government wiretapping phone calls internal to the United States.

So if being monitored by the government, without a warrant or any oversight, while you make a call to Canada from within your own house doesn't bother you, I assume you also wouldn't mind if the gov

To you and all the others that are saying I don't care about being monitored, what exactly in my post made you decide that I didn't care about being monitored? I stated a fact, or according to some, a lie made by the administration. I did not say it was right or wrong. I don't see my opinion anywhere in my post.

tapping of phone calls to and from people inside the United States to and from someone outside the United States

you are correct the exposed warantless tapping is international calls, and then any calls that are tied to those international calls.however the survelance was (supposidly) all domestic calls, they were/are accused of data-mining all phone calls, ie who you called, who called you, and how long you talked. That was all phone calls, domestic, longdistance, and international. This data would then b

What the headline calls domestic spying is actually the tapping of phone calls to and from people inside the United States to and from someone outside the United States who is a known terrorist or member of Al Queda. It is not, as some believe, the government wiretapping phone calls internal to the United States.

Would the people that determine the known list of terrorists be the same ones who were certain that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction?

You are correct sir.Unfortunately,/. is infested with many of the same moonbat types that think that the Bush Administration actually planned 9/11 in conjuction with the Eeeevil Jews to implicate innocent Muslims so they could take over the Iraqi Oilfields, and then grant exclusive oil-rights to Haliburton while making obscene profits on the backs of "working class" Americans and randomly shooting people while going hunting!

So yeah, be prepared to be modded down and modded down hard. There isn't room for a

And how do you know if a person is a terrorist? Obviously, by convicting him of it in a court of law. Until then, the person being spied on is a lawful private citizen, with all the rights affirmed by the Constitution!

Or, they could know that fdiskne1's original post was false. The domestic curveillance program involved wiretaps and other surveillance of people in the US suspected to have had contact with al-Qaeda. It included the eavesdropping of completely domestic calls. Contrary to what you've been led to believe, the international calls were not the only thing monitored.

Except that it WASN'T false. His post contained exactly what we know about the program. You can make all the suppositions and theories you want, but that's all they are. suppositions and theories.My point was that the OP post shouldn't have been modded down as now the entire conversation can't be placed in context. All you see is one side's view, and no opposing opinion.

Personally I don't have a problem with this program. How the heck else are we going to find out this information? We TRIED the "law e

Personally I don't have a problem with this program. How the heck else are we going to find out this information?

How about... legally?

The problem that Democrats and other patriot have is not with the wiretapping. Listening in on phone calls between Americans and suspected terrorists abroad is, everyone agrees, a good thing, and entirely legal if it is done according to the law of the land. That means getting a warrant from the FISA court.

The issue with Bush's wiretapping is that it violates that law. Bush is engaging in warrantless wiretapping of those phone calls.

I seem to recall a few years back when Bush was claiming that the war would be paid for with Iraqi oil. Of course, now that the cost of the war is expected to pass one [msn.com] or maybe two [guardian.co.uk] trillion dollars, Iraqi oil couldn't pay for it, so it's easy to backpedal on that claim.

You are correct sir.

No, he is wrong, there are two programs. One which tapped calls internationally as the grandparent posted, and a second one that collected phone records on nearly every single American's domestic calls. [usatoday.com] Did you call in for pizza? Did a terrorist call in for pizza (God forbid that terrorists actually run the pizza delivery place, mafia style)? Does it matter? Who knows! Nobody knows what the NSA is going to use such an enormous block of data for, since the vast majority (99.999999999999%?) of the calls have nothing to do with terrorism. Google other articles about Qwest's refusal to participate to see the millions in juicy taxpayer dollars they passed up that the other telecoms were apparently all too happy to suck out of your tax dollars for this service.

is infested with many of the same moonbat types

It's a shame the infestation hasn't managed to drive out the infestation of ignorant Bush supporters who can't even keep track of what their president is doing. Maybe we need to swallow a cat to get the spider now?

It has long been established that people do not have a constitutionally protected expectation of privacy in records of who they call. SCOTUS ruled this in Smith v. Maryland,which allowed law enforcement to collect this data without a warrant.Congress disagreed, and passed the Electronic Communications Privacy Act in 1986. However ECPA has exceptions for intelligence gathering, and IIRC the Patriot Act further relaxes these.

The programs -- as they are asserted to be -- probably pass constitutional and sta

I thought I could at least trust the Republicans to spend less of my money and to reduce gov't intrusion into my private life....now what the fuck are they good for?!

Well, as much as I hope the Democrats capture the White House, I think the past six years demonstrates the value of divided government.

Putting my partisan hat on, I have to say I'm not surprised. The Republicans have told us all along that government is a scam to steal money from taxpayers and trample the liberties of the individual. So, what

"Do you think George Bush should be impeached for breaking the FISA law?"

How about "tried for treason"? Supposedly, he blocked some investigations into al-Qaeda operations before 9/11 in order to appease his Saudi oil-buddies. *If* this is true (and we won't know without a fair trial) he deserves the usual penalty for treason.